| Still Life, Pear and Bowls, Twin Lakes, Connecticut, 1916 Paper Size 20" X 16" Image Size 10" X 11 1/4" Hudson River Pier, New York, 1914 Paper Size 20" X 16" Image Size 9 1/4" X 12 1/4" City Hall Park, New York, 1915 Paper Size 20" X 16" Image Size 13 1/8" X 6 1/4" Fifth Avenue, New York, 1915 Paper Size 20" X 16" Image Size 12 1/4" X 8" Yawning Woman, New York, 1916 Paper Size 20" X 16" Image Size 12 1/2" X 9 1/2" Man, Five Points Square, New York, 1916 Paper Size 20" X 16" Image Size 9 1/2" X 10 1/4" From the Viaduct, 125th Street, New York, 1915 Paper Size 20" X 16" Image Size 10" X 12 7/8" Railroad Sidings, New York, 1914 Paper Size 20" X 16" Image Size 12 1/2" X 9 1/2" From the El, New York, 1917 Paper Size 20" X 16" Image Size 12 3/4" X 9 1/8" Abstraction, Porch Shadows, Twin Lakes, Connecticut, 1916 Paper Size 20" X 16" Image Size 13" X 9 1/8" Details
In the earlier years of his formidable career, Paul Strand (1890–1976) was befriended and mentored by Alfred Stieglitz. A fierce proponent of modern art in America, Stieglitz's infamous 291 Gallery on Fifth Avenue was the first to champion the avant-garde of European and American art and photography. His stewardship of Strand had a profound effect, cultivating in Strand one of the greatest modernist photographers of the era. Aperture has drawn some of his most notable images for this portfolio from the Paul Strand Archive; they include City Hall Park, New York, 1915; From the El, New York, 1917; and Yawning Woman, New York, 1916.
Describing Strand's oeuvre, Stieglitz said: "In the history of photography there are but few photographers who, from the point of view of expression, have really done much work of any importance. And by importance we mean work that has some relatively lasting quality, that element which gives all art its real significance. . . . The work is brutally direct. Devoid of any flim-flams; devoid of trickery and any 'ism,' devoid of any attempt to mystify an ignorant public." This selection of hand-pulled, dust-grain photogravures of some of the most influential photographs of the twentieth century were made from the original glass plates in 1973. These works were the subject of a major exhibition at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, in February 1998. Several of the original prints have sold for between $150,000 and $250,000. Printed by master photogravure printer Jon Goodman, and bearing the authorized seal of the Paul Strand Archive, the portfolio is accompanied by a signed text by noted photography critic Ben Lifson and Michael E. Hoffman, former Executive Director of Aperture. The portfolio is sold in a cloth-covered clamshell case. Portfolio is comprised of 10 photogravures with an accompanying text which bares the stamp of the Paul Strand Archive. |